


used to be one of the rotten ones

by ladiesforhades



Category: South Park
Genre: Abuse, Cheating, Divorce, Grief, Healing, M/M, Suicide Attempts, Toxic Relationships, Vent fanfic, Violence, abuse recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:02:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26386072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladiesforhades/pseuds/ladiesforhades
Summary: Life’s weird.My twitter is mintbledThanks
Relationships: Kenny McCormick/Craig Tucker, Past Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak, past Craig Tucker/Mark Cotswald
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Life’s weird.  
> My twitter is mintbled  
> Thanks

" _Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that_. _Now you’re all gone, got your makeup on and you’re not coming back. Can’t you come back?_ "

—anthem for a seventeen-year old girl by broken social scene

* * *

  
  


Fingers curl into the edges of porcelain sink to steady a quivering frame. If he can just get his arms to stop their shaking...maybe, just maybe…

Craig Tucker isn’t looking himself in the eyes as he brings his attention up at his reflection through dark lashes and low hanging lids. His stare is right there on a sickly purple smeared into the apples of his cheek, the makeup that was carefully applied is now smudged. The bruises he tried to hide under layers of off shade cover up are visible.

He never cries. Yet he did tonight.

_"I should have let you die that night."_

It was said in the dark backseat of his now exes car as he dug his nails into the thin of Craig’s wrists. 

It wasn't the physical blow, the pain of his flesh being marred that led him here. It was what was said. He was at some lame party in North Park with him, a guy not much older but already two years into community college before him. Craig was just barely exiting highschool when they met.

Craig Tucker and Mark Cotswald were messy from the start. Craig hadn't been in a relationship since he was with Tweek. They were together for years until the day Craig broke it off. From an outside perspective there was no rational reason for Craig to cut it off. Tweek has every reason to be angry, Craig deserved thrown coffee attempting to be splashed on his face. It was narrowly avoided and he numbly walked away with a broken heart. He's the one that initiated the break up with his long term boyfriend yet he's also the one that felt himself sinking with each step farther. There was a look of being so lost and confused that no one really saw through. It looked like everything else on him: apathetic, blank.

When he went home to his mother's apartment he softly shut his bedroom door behind him. He wasn’t angry. There wasn’t a trace of any form of resentment or regret, just a soft of cold numbness. It's been three weeks of his parents’ separation and two weeks of Tricia living far away in denver.

Weirdly enough, he ached for her. The things he detested became what he yearned for. For her rude awakening to get him up to do morning jogs, her tap dancing on the hardwood floors. Karen and her watching reruns of cartoons. Tricia, Karen and occasionally Kenny standing around in the kitchen with spoonfuls of cereal shoved into their mouth.

Craig found himself missing that more than he wanted to admit and eventually, more than he allowed himself.

Everyone hated him when he broke up with Tweek. There was a social isolation that came as a punishment for his actions. Clyde just said “dude…”, Token looked on with slight concern while Jimmy cracked a joke that Craig couldn’t bring himself to smile at anymore. No one outside of Clyde really showed outward disappointment. Yet Craig felt silent judgement. He fell away into a hole of shame, and when highschool had hit he found himself sitting alone in the library.

When Craig would get home he’d often find himself looking out at the mountains behind the buildings in town from his balcony. And his gaze would lower to the drop and the ground below.

It was the end of freshman year when the summer hit and he realized he pushed everyone away. It was safer that way, he liked it that way. The sun was making a descent and the sky was painted and bleeding together in a gradient of purples, blues, pinks and whites.This solitude is just the way he wanted it.. Yet it was the first time Craig fantasized about being a bird.

Of jumping.

And the first time he completely cuts off his emotions. For years he tried to control them...in that moment he decided he'd be better off without them as a whole.

So when Mark backed him into the freezer aisle of Jmart with his mouth planting on his, Craig was surprised his heart did that weird pitter patter. He was taken aback at the warmth that filled him, like a light flicked to life in his dark confines,

He was shocked he closed his eyes and kissed back after the initial shock. 

"I'm taking you out. You're mine, right?" Craig almost remembers it as being a pull, something so alluring. He worked with Mark for two weeks. They had a brief history of fighting in elementary school when Craig was more aggressive. Mark always tried to "put him in his place." Always said Craig was the bully.

Craig eventually became less invested in tormenting others and took to a more plain and boring lifestyle. Minding his own business while Mark eventually fucked off and after a good year— him and his sister left to go back to homeschooling.

It's a memory that holds. Craig remembers slipping out of Marks grasp, confused as to why he let himself succumb to being felt up in the empty freezer aisle. He is shorter than him. Puny. He finds himself shorter than most people now. He was always the tall one, and now he resents anyone who has that advantage over him. It's like he was stripped of the one thing that made him unique.

"Fuck off." Is all he said as he slipped away. Yet he could feel Mark's eyes on him. Following him as he retreated to the break room to sit with Kenny McCormick in quiet. They'd lounge together but also in solitude. Lost to their own devices. Kenny had his nose shoved in his 3ds and Craig tried to stifle whatever that foreign feeling was.

This was the start.

And this here, a broken display in dirty glass is where it ends.

Craig's lifts his chin and takes it in. The bruising is horrible. And as he wipes away the makeup with his long sleeves, he realizes there are finger shaped marks on his wrists from earlier, too.

Seeing it, the dark contrast on pale skin makes him slink down to his knees. His whole body is turning into quivers. But he can't cry again. He has to get out of this bathroom. He’s afraid to go out there and get away from this party. Craig can still feel the vibrations from loud music blaring through speaker phones. He can feel his heart feeling dead and his eyes becoming blank. He doesn't know how he gathers the strength to pick up his phone.

Nothing on the screen makes any sense. He had only a select few numbers. Mark, his mother, his boss and…

Kenny.

A shaking exhale leaves him. His eyes look to the door where he knows Mark is out there waiting with all his friends from the debate team who know none the wiser about what their relationship is really like. His teeth are chattering. And he isn't thinking as he presses down on Kenny's name.

The phone has to pick up a signal, and then it rings. Once, twice, three, four, five times...Craig had pretty much lost hope by the sixth. So when he hears Kenny's voice on the other line he has to blink, he's stuck. Frozen.

"Hello? Who is this?"

He wants to speak. He needs to speak. How can he possibly raise his voice to someone he hardly talks to though? They...they have no connection to each other outside of work, it's obvious Craig's number isn't saved, yet still...

Somehow, after an awkward pause words crawl up the length of his throat like it's a very long ladder that extends to a great distance.

"I...I need help," it finally drops from the heights of his lips and stumbles out into the open. There is the sound of shuffling on the other line, as if Kenny is moving about under the sheets. It's late. Craig probably woke him up.

"Um..okay. Craig? Where are you?"

Another pause. He doesn't know how to answer that. Where is he? His mind is slowed; he can't fathom how to figure that out. He's not in South Park. He's in North Park...he knows that. He knows he's at a party Mark took him to, but where is that?

"Uh…"

"I'll track your iPhone. Did you know your location is on?" Kenny questions. For some reason that makes him feel sick, he does know and he clutches onto his sore stomach.

"I...yeah."

It's quiet minus the sound of Kennys movements. Craig can hear the sound of a zipper being yanked up, keys jangling and eventually his truck purring to life. It's always been loud. In highschool, you could hear it's departure. There was nothing subtle about Kenny's arrivals or goodbyes,

"Do you want me to stay on the phone?" He asks. The aforementioned device slips out of Craig's hand, falling to the floor in his stiff grip.

"Craig…? Craig?"

He can hear Kenny but he can't move to pick it up again.

It's the worst feeling in the world.

And if Craig thought he had numbed himself for years.

This is a different type of stifle than anything he'd ever forced upon himself.

He can’t move, speak, breathe, he’s paralyzed. In shock, maybe.

And he feels in this moment that he has died. And he desperately wishes he could have passed on that night, the one Mark brought up so his body would be lifeless to match.

"Just wait there. I'm coming."


	2. Chapter 2

Kenny doesn’t know where he’s going.

Craig Tucker isn’t particularly someone he plays buddy buddy with. Sure, his number is in his contacts, but it’s more for work related purposes than anything. So when Kenny sees the name pop up on his screen while he’s scrolling through Facebook in a sleepy daze, he has to do a double take.

_ “I...I need help.” _

It’s not what he was expecting at all.

Kenny’s phone is an older model but he tracks Craig with ease. He’s not one to turn down a cry for help, he doesn’t know the context but even if he and Craig haven’t talked in years—since Tricia was around, really. He’s not going to leave him high and dry.

Realistically, Kenny sometimes eyes him up at work anyways. There is something worrisome about Craig’s sullen demeanor and clothes that seem to be getting baggier by the day.

Kenny thinks about it as he follows the directions to North Park. He’s tired and confused. Trying to piece together what he knows of Craig in present time. He’s aware that Mark and Craig have a thing going on. He’s walked in on Mark feeling Craig up in the freezer aisle once or twice. Kenny couldn’t place his finger on it. There was something about the way Craig had his eyes closed, looking far away as Mark marred his neck. Something haunting. Like who Kenny knew Craig as when they were kids is...gone. Realistically, of course he is. No one stays the same forever. Still, Kenny dwelled in it once or twice for a day or two, but tried not to think about it much afterwards.

The houses in this part of North Park are sort of ritzy but it’s not hard to pick out where the party is. He can hear Craig’s shaky inhales and exhales on the other line, and it’s scary. Kenny almost doesn’t want to disturb him, like this is a personal moment for him and Kenny is invading it.

“I’m here. Do you want to come out or for me to come in?” He questions. There is a very deep intake of breath, a pause.

“I’ll be out soon.” Is all Craig says. The call drops.

Kenny bites are his lower lip, unsure of what to expect. There are a few people sitting on the porch of the house with red solo cups in their grasp. The music is loud and Kenny can hear it from where he’s sitting. 

A few minutes pass and from the side of the house Craig emerges. He is hugging, arms wrapped around himself and wearing a shirt that makes him look like he’s drowning in fabric. Really, he’s almost unrecognizable, head down. He could be anyone. It’s the old signature chullo hat that calls out to Kenny. God, he hasn’t seen that thing in a while.

When Craig gets to his car he twists himself about as if he’s looking out for something or someone, he must not find it because he untenses just a little before pulling open the door and climbing in. He’s illuminated in the artificial glow of the top light, and Kenny can see him now. Cheeks smeared with bruising, even his neck marred in the slightest. The shock of it makes his lips part and he’s speaking before he can think.

“Woah. Who did this?” Craig turns away, looking back down. This isn’t a time to talk about it, he knows it. Yet he’s frozen still as he looks Craig over.

“I just need to get away from here.” It sounds broken. And that is shocking in itself.

Kenny moves, starting up his truck. It purrs to life and they’re going, far from whatever Craig just experienced.

It’s quiet, and Kenny really doesn’t know where the fuck they’re going now. But he heads back towards South Park, towards his place. Craig’s eyes are closed as wind whips his hair this way and that, and he thinks he just needs to get him somewhere to sleep for the night.

So he does.

*

The McCormick residence is just as run down as it’s always been. Yet there is no vocal complaint from Craig as Kenny ushers him inside. Instead, he almost looks relieved. When they get to Kenny’s room he had no hesitation of lowering himself onto Kenny’s mattress and curling into himself. Somehow, Kenny doesn’t feel right sleeping with him, like maybe that would be too personal. So he grabs a spare sheet thrown in the corner and lays down on the ground next to his mattress. By this time Craig is already passed out, and Kenny has to pause as he watches him, a pillow in his grasp, sleeping. He looks less haunted, and less sad this way. More at peace.

Kenny tries not to think about it.

But he does, watching the way Craig shoulders rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. 


End file.
